Before the School Committee gathered for its meeting, the field had narrowed from three finalists to two, after Catherine Minihan, associate superintendent for strategy and accountability of the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation of Indiana, bowed out citing personal reasons.

Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District Superintendent Martin O'Shea and Wolf Swamp Road School Principal Neil Gile each spent more than an hour answering questions about their experience, philosophies and plans for the Longmeadow school system.

Sitting before the seven-member committee, Gile noted his decision to bring technology specialists to Wolf Swamp, who helped analyse what areas of the school could benefit by high tech solutions. He acknowledged lacking experience in areas like collective bargaining, but emphasized his knowledge of the district from five years as principal of Wolf Swamp.

"I am committed to this district," Gile told the committee. "We have a very high bar, so I think I bring a certain level of understanding to the table; I understand the stakes."

Many of the School Committee members' questions - the same questions were asked to both candidates - revolved around the idea of high expectations of academic performance in the Longmeadow schools.

O'Shea's answers heavily focused on his experience as a superintendent in the Hampden-Wilbraham district. He also invoked his history in Longmeadow, where he began his career in education as a high school teacher, saying that he is content in his current position, but specifically wants to lead Longmeadow's district.

"This is the only position that I applied for and would apply for," O'Shea said. "To come back to the district that I know as a classroom teacher... and to come back to a community that supports learning as much as it does would be really rewarding to me."

But during a discussion following the interviews, most committee members seemed to immediately dismiss the idea of selecting a superintendent that night.

Committee Clerk Kimberly King first proposed committee members be able to watch videos of candidates' previous interviews that the Superintendent Search Committee saw, but later amended the request, suggesting they personally interview Gile and O'Shea a second time in order to ask more targeted questions. She also suggested site visits to Hampden-Wilbraham and Wolf Swamp.

"There's no reason why we have to make this decision tonight," King said.

Deriding the proposal, committee member John Fitzgerald said that doing so would undermine the process and the search committee's work. Fitzgerald also suggested that taking such action would be unfair to candidates, as neither he nor committee chair Janet Robinson would be available to interview candidates on Dec. 22, the next possible day to conduct the followup interviews.

After warning the committee members that further interviews and site visits could cause one or both candidates to withdraw from the running for the position, which is advertised as paying an annual salary of $140,000 to $170,000, he spoke with Gile and O'Shea, who both agreed to the interview and site visit.

Visits will take place Monday and Tuesday, and interviews will take place on Tuesday afternoon, followed by a committee discussion in executive session. Interviews and a committee vote on who to select will occur in the absence of Robinson and Fitzgerald.

A formal announcement of which candidate the committee selects to replace Marie Doyle, Longmeadow's outgoing superintendent, is scheduled to be made at its meeting on Jan. 4.

At least one parent of a child at Longmeadow schools on Thursday said she believed the committee should take its time in choosing a new superintendent, even restarting the selection process if they feel it necessary.

Schools are "what we pride ourselves on here," said Melanie Rothstein, 52, a parent of two Longmeadow graduates and a current eighth-grader. "Why rush something and risk making a bad decision?"